Between the Flares
by Me Or The Wallpaper
Summary: A collection of shorts that largely take place between the fights.  Or Lens flares.  Unconnected to each other.  Kirk/Spock ish, most of the time.  Probably.  Ok, some will also be gen.
1. Strangers on a Train

The Vulcan steps on with the cautious, slightly desperate air of a new parent. The baby strapped to his chest isn't visible because of a powder blue cloth draped over the head, but when he turns, still stepping delicately, a chubby hand is revealed. It grips softly at his shirt with small, uncut baby nails.

"New parent?" I ask. I smile at him.

He doesn't return the gesture, of course. Instead, there is the barest dipping of his head in my direction. That blank, calculating Vulcan stare used to spook me a bit, back when I first joined Starfleet, though I find I'm more used to it now. Nothing prepares me for the sudden rapture I am presented with, though. I see his gaze click over me as if taking pictures – eyes, hair, uniform – all of them categorized in his mind in a flash.

Then it's as if nothing happened. And well, whatever, if he wants to roll that way.

"I have been a father for approximately two weeks." He says calmly. The shuttle lurches very slightly, the balancing system immediately compensating, yet his hands fly up, fluttering a bit around the small bundle like birds in a frenzy as he slowly lowers himself to the seat next to my own. I smile. It perhaps comes off as a bit forlorn, a bit rusty. Very few people my age still possess the ability to smile vibrantly, though, so I don't think much about it.

"Two weeks, huh? Man, he's so little. Or she…?"

"It is a boy. It was more probable that a child born of my partner and I would be male." He shoots me a severely odd look through his lashes, subtle and blunt at once. "My husband and I took part in a medical trial which combined both of our DNA, creating an artificial cell using - "

"There are _gay_ Vulcans?" I exclaim.

Pretty loudly.

The poor man stares at me, face utterly blank.

"Not that there's anything wrong with that!" I add instantly, making myself feel dumber. "Seriously. I just… I mean, I have no problem with it- it just seems like something a tight-ass logical society would have an issue with… oh… um, crap, forget I…"

Well, he's really staring at me now. One eyebrow is positively vying to join his hairline, a crowded row of wrinkles interrupting his young face by standing at attention above the brow.

"You know. Forget I said anything. Just forget it. Pretend I was never here. Your baby's is adorable. Or… small, anyway. I can't really see if he's adorable, he's under a blanket. Um."

It is incredibly bizarre that I somehow manage to start off most conversations entirely normally, but my foot always ends up in my mouth by the end of it. It's something I am, unfortunately, positive I've handed down to my sons. Or Sam, anyway. I don't know how Jim acts these days…

Sharp and cold as it had been the first week Jim had been absent, I feel a kind of animalistic, sickening grief rise up in my chest. My gaze falls to the baby – that tiny hand curled around the man's collar. I try to remember what Jim had looked like when he was that small. How he had acted.

I look back up at the Vulcan, only to find that he is smiling.

Smiling.

The Vulcan is smiling. Dear god in heaven, I don't know what to hope for anymore if I'm making Vulcans grin like loons. Well, not like loons, it's far too miniscule of a thing for that. Or fairly repressed loons, if loons they must be, but still.

Either way. I had the distinct impression he was silently laughing at me. Which he had every whopping right to, and yet, "What're you smiling at?" I shoot at him.

Slick as butter, the thing falls right off his face, skin instantly smooth and flawless. The only hint anymore is this slight catch in his eyes, a small twinkle. "I find that your persona greatly resembles a close acquaintance of mine. There is no need to apologize. I can see that you quite obviously did not intend any type of offense."

"Right. Sweet. Good." I say, sighing slightly.

The eyebrow twitches again.

"So. Since you're not offended by me… what's your name? And the baby's, if I can pronounce it. If not, can you do an old lady a favor and just kind of make one up and pretend? I'd feel awful if I couldn't pronounce it. Mine's Winona, by the way. Winona Kirk."

"I am Spock." He says delicately. The name struck some familiar chord, though I couldn't place it. Who knew, though. It was probably the Vulcan version of 'Smith.' "The infant's name is… George."

The shuttle comes to a stop. Artificial gravity and balancing systems do their jobs, but I still feel it inside me, the weight of speed pulling at my gut. I laugh, though. A dull, small laugh. "George." I say, quietly. The name is poison on my tongue, and it puts down roots, growing between my teeth where I know I'll taste it for days. "Of course. One of those lovely, conveniently pronounceable Vulcan names."

He says nothing.

For a long stretch of time, neither of us speaks. The shuttle starts up again, and as it does, the small thing reaches, stretching against him, waking. In a desperate flash I remember Jim, I remember _Jim_ in his little crib, curling himself around, the wispy little spiders of his hands reaching up and trying to get into his wide little mouth. Curling around to the side and back so much in his crib I was scared he'd hurt himself before he was half a year old.

Great, nearly vindictive relief floods because I remember him. And though I try to ignore the edge of the guilt that whispers 'Why didn't you pick the damn thing up, then, if you were so worried he'd hurt himself?' I can still see those clear blue eyes in my mind, and the gaping little gum smile as he stared at the toys Sam had arranged around him.

"Would you like to hold him?" Spock says. I turn, staring at him, taken aback by his eyes. Because they're wider than any Vulcan's I'd ever seen, and there is something so inherently _desperate_ in them, even if the rest of his face remains immovable.

"What?" I ask, dumbly.

"George. Would you like to hold George? I believe he would benefit." He'd removed the blanket, and 'George' was leaning back against his headrest. I couldn't see his eyes, but I saw two little pointed ears, curled up against his head like blooming flower petals. He has scruffy hair just on the top of his head, in the same way both my kids had had when they were real young. His was dark, though, of course.

"You think – wait, how would your kid benefit from being held by some strange woman who just accidentally insulted his dads?"

Spock stares. He appears to think for a moment. When he answers, though, his voice is sure and steady. "We are attempting to assist him in becoming accustomed to others at a young age so he is not adverse to the idea of staying with adults outside his immediate family for prolonged periods of time. We both are employed in positions that require frequent – and dangerous – trips that would be unsuitable for an infant or child's safety. Therefore, yes, George would benefit from being held and admired by one he is not accustomed to."

I frown. "You sure?" I ask.

He looks a trifle taken aback. "I have not lied to you. Vulcans do not lie." He says.

I pause. Something in me thinks back to the past of me and babies and knows that it must be a bad idea, because I'm incapable, really, of being anything good to anything so small and innocent.

And something in me wants; yearns with every cell and fiber to have a tiny hand cling to my clothes, to have a little heartbeat humming away at my breast and a lolling little head supported by my hand and shoulder, hungry eyes taking in the world around. I think of how that ever-present flush of red that pervades over an infants fat cheeks would be green for this tiny little thing.

"Ok." I say. Selfishly.

The man doesn't even hesitate as he quickly but gently begins to undo the many small safety connections that hold the baby in place. I wonder what kind of job he has. I wonder if perhaps he expects someone else to care for the little one eventually on a permanent basis. He did say 'dangerous.'

And then he turns the little guy around, sleepy, large eyes blinking blearily up at me, and I find myself stopping wondering immediately.

My hands react as if running off of some delayed instinct. I hold the boy. I support his small head, running a thumb up over the curled-in pointed ear, watching it unfurl beneath my finger, the green veins beneath the skin like the threads running through a leaf.

The eyes. The shape of the head. The way the hair falls, even if it's dark hair. The chub on his wrist and around his sharp little jaw.

And suddenly, I know that I was fooling myself. That Sam had been the one who used to twist himself up in the crib trying to get comfortable. And that I would always reach in past the toys that _George_ would arrange around him. I would always try to adjust him and help the little guy out. I know this because the baby in that memory looks nothing like this one, and this one is Jim, through and through.

And I can't remember a speck of Jim's childhood. But those eyes – those vivid, electric blue eyes stare up at me out of this baby's face, forcing my mind back, forcing my limbs back to clutching around a small, little thing while George is dying, while George is speaking, while George is screaming "I love you, I love you so much," and my body bleeds out an afterbirth and I am empty, empty everywhere, and death is all I can feel in my arms, and this little one really is named George, isn't he?

My body may have rejected these eyes in a baby the first time, but it seems all of me is crowding at the surface of my skin, my lungs and heart and eyes all waking up without me ever really knowing they were asleep, screaming at me 'here he is, this is what you lost, you stupid woman!'

You stupid woman.

This isn't what I say, though. I pull the baby – I pull _George_ to me without being able to help myself, watching the way one of his little hands reaches up and catches hold of a wrinkle in my shirt. I say "He's a beautiful baby boy."

"Yes." Spock agrees. He doesn't thank me, as most parents do when others compliment their children, and I feel an undeserved swell of pride at my son's ability to find this straight-forward oddball of a Vulcan. But if Jim has done anything good, and he has, god knows he has, and now I remember where I saw this man… if he has done anything good, it's not because of me.

"His eyes." I say. My voice falters. Spock doesn't question me on my meaning, though. I only feel him shift when the dynamic changes, because we both know who we are.

"He'll probably be allergic to some crazy things. Is he allergic to some crazy things?"

"We were able to manipulate his tolerances towards most medicines before his birth using recently developed technology, though we have been told that his allergy to certain foods and fabrics will be omnipresent."

"And depression. Manic-depression sort of runs in our family."

I'm not looking at him. I'm looking at this little boy's eyes, and praying that the train will come to a slow and perfectly safe halt, and reside there for a while, making us all late and letting me hold this baby an hour longer.

Spock bows his head, slightly. If I know Jim at all, (and god knows, after it was too late already, I'd tried to know him) he hasn't told this man this detail about his family. And from what I've seen of this man, he knows already. As he knew who I was.

"You know," I speak, and I don't know why I do, because it hurts like hell right now, but I can't seem to stop, "Sam used to joke. Used to say that none of us actually had it. Depression, I mean. He'd say that together, we were all one crazy head. Because I was the depressive stage. He was the stages that were normal and a little lazy. Jim was manic. Jim was always manic. And George…"

I know it can't possibly be true, but I swear the baby seems to look up at me with more intensity when I say his name.

"George was the mood regulator. He was medication and therapy and… confidence…"

The announcements come on. The attendant says we will be arriving early at our destination due to the cancelation of another shuttle.

George sighs a whistling, toothless baby sigh, resting his heavy head against the soft spot between my breast and shoulder, almost on my arm, giving up on his struggling, in-vain attempts to hold his little head up. Those great big blue eyes close, and I can't for the life of me remember anything past shutting my eyes and holding Jim close in the hospital bed, in a different, higher-flying shuttle. Anything before years later, when I finally woke up only to find him damaged inside and out, through and through, staring at me through the wall that had built up between us since I'd held him so close, last time I'd blinked, or something.

I hadn't been able to look in his eyes on that day. Now, too late, much too late, years later, I feel starved and trying desperately to feed off of the sight of these huge blue things in a baby's head. And we will be arriving shortly, lucky us, due to a cancelation. And this man will take this little thing, and he will go and meet Jim, who will doubtlessly kiss him, kiss the little baby, perhaps never find out who held him today.

"Something tells me it'll be you that's the level headed one in your family." I snap. It's in my own sharp, sarcastic voice, a grin like a warning already sliding over my face without my control. Ordinarily, people flinch. He doesn't. "So you'll have your work cut out for you, eh? I wonder who will be the depressive one. I wonder who will be crazy, and if it's still Jim. I wouldn't know, you see. I mean, I tried. I tried to talk to him again. I would forgive him for being a little shithead." I stare directly into this man's eyes, grin sharp, eyes sharp, arms soft around the baby. "I survived it too, you know! I didn't come out of the Kelvin trying to hate him. I didn't step into life with him and think 'hey, I'll get me an abusive husband!' And I forgive Jim, a thousand times over, for walking out on me. I know I walked out on him, a thousand times over. But it would be nice. It would be nice to know whether or not he's crazy. Whether or not he's tried to kill himself again. If he's alive. If he gets married, or if he has a fucking child."

I wait for him to take the baby back. He doesn't even reach for him. I see salty tears on the top of this baby's head, matting down the soft tuft of hair. He already has a soft bald spot on the back of his head where he lies down. Though I know the tears are mine, some quintessential thought process is forbidding me to think of them as something from my eyes. Some part of me that is now running down over my grandson's head, dampening and darkening his hair. Dipping down fast over that soft bald spot.

As if it is the last, most beautifully important thing on Earth, I concentrate all my energy into remembering if Jim had a soft bald spot. Sam did. I know Sam did.

We come to our stop. People are trying not to look at us as they step off the shuttle, and Spock sits still beside me, waiting as I hold this baby. Try to breath George in through the scent of my own tears, my own blood and skin and scent of age that seems to overpower such a small, precious bit of life. I watch his eyes blink sleepily up at me. Such a serious little thing, even at so young an age. Perhaps he'll inherit Spock's temperament after all. Perhaps he will be forgiving; even to those who do not deserve it.

I hand him back gentle as I can manage, holding his head up, catching his little feet and pulling them gently through the holes for the little pouch strapped to Spock's chest. He secures George, putting a little cushion around his head to catch it if it lulls and zipping him up. He rises. He pauses. He turns to me and stops.

"Jim is happy. He is exceedingly happy. He is still 'crazy,' though he has assured me many times that he couldn't possibly die if… if I were the one to find him. If George were the one to find him. He jumps off of buildings and out of shuttles regularly, with the assistance of a parachute. He buys houses on a whim and agrees to missions that will span many years on a whim. He proposed to me and married me on the same day. He agreed to a medical procedure that was only in its trial period because of his desire to have a child with me. So I assure you, he is most definitely 'crazy'… if this is indeed what you meant by such a pronouncement."

He walks out the door. I hear a shout of glee from outside, and for one glorious moment, there is Jim, rising up from behind a group of tourists where I couldn't see him sitting: proud, gleeful, and so very much a father and husband as he kisses Spock for a moment longer than appropriate in front of people. As he leans down and kisses the baby on the top of his head, touching a fat little baby cheek, running his finger up over the ear as I had, not two minutes ago.

And then the doors swish shut, and that is between us, separating us. Through the window, I see Spock speaking, and I see Jim's shock. I cannot read his expression beyond that. He turns, looks back at the windows, which are mirrored from the outside, so of course, he doesn't see me, but he seems to see straight through it all _to_ me, one hand on his husband's shoulder and one hand still rested at the side of his baby's face. The train starts to move, and I watch, shaking, as distance piles up between us, Jim's electric blue eyes following me throughout it all.

A/N: I can't believe the first story I put up in this collection included mpreg. o_o I actually really don't like mpreg.

Um, anyway. This is a collection of short stories. Most of them are from the infamous kink meme on livejournal. I'm going to try to keep a T rating, though there is a chance I won't. You will be given fair warning if I do, though.

This won't be updated on a weekly basis or anything, unless I end up doing it by accident. Rest assured I will never leave you with a cliffhanger unless I already have a sequal one-shot already finished and ready to go, though. It's a pretty safe bet to say that all of these stories will at least contain the characters Kirk and Spock and/or Bones, because those are my personal favorites, and if Kirk and Spock are there... well, I happen to believe in what TOS preached. They were totally doing fade to blacks between episodes.

Well. Thanks for reading, and I hope you enjoyed it. This is unbeta-ed, so sorry if you found any mistakes. If you have any comments, positive or negative, I'd love to hear them.


	2. A World of Emotions

A/N: This would be a story about the chaotic, troubled wonderings of Spock's mind when he realizes certain things. It might be a little hard to follow because I might have maybe been high on sleep deprivation when writing it. And I have no idea if this was a good idea. Sorry, darlings. Also~

BECAUSE I forgot, everyone knows Star Trek isn't mine, right? ^_^' It belongs to Roddenberry's ghost and those shiny new movie guys. (I just use its men for my own fictional needs, heheheheh…)

* * *

It is not a romance story.

Life is hard and gritty and contains just as much ugliness as beauty; just as much suffering as elation. This does not change when he falls in love. Perhaps, really, they don't have time for romance.

It's actually more that any peril that could have existed at all is strengthened tenfold. Emotions, he has been told, run deep in his race. His seem to simmer beneath the bones, cage themselves in his ribs, rush through his blood and make it burn or freeze, make his pores more open to the air and his eyes (human eyes) collect data and life and any image of simple beauty with a kind of hunger he is unused to. Something in him has been shortened. Some potential has been ripped away from all of this, though the possibility of something great has still never been riper.

Jim is beautiful to him, yes, but he is still the same. He is certainly not flawless in any sense, and never was. It was not love at first sight, the almost painfully unreal cliché that so many other stories have centered around. It took time, and did not come with an epiphany, did not come after hours of trying to loose themselves in the other's body. The realization was sharp, existed beneath each layer of him and would sometimes cut into reality, make him act out and reveal himself in moments of desperation and anger, fear and longing. He knew it, and didn't think about it. Didn't let himself think of it at all. Any acknowledgment he might have had was slow and almost sickly, taking up residence in himself and making him shut his eyes for a moment after he had nearly lost Jim or felt the other man too close, hand on his hand or on his shoulder, face slack and pale or broken into that almost ludicrously happy smile. It felt almost sweet, yet curled around him like dread.

_Ah. I love him. That would be the reason._

Something unimaginably guilty in it. Something addicting.

Something to be avoided at all costs, and something thoroughly unavoidable.

The simplest feeling he had ever felt and yet still the hardest to concur, evidence of it seeming to grow into the cracks of him after he thought he had cleared it all away. And he couldn't simply _love _and ignore any other emotion, any more than he could simply hate and leave the rest of chaos behind. Hate would come with this small, glorious breach in his controls: violence, greed, jealousy, desire, anger, happiness and joy, belonging, everything. It would all follow, he could feel everything sharper in him from this one unchecked feeling that seemed to erase him and make him sharper and better in the same moment.

He tried to rid himself of it. And he failed. A simple emotion, a simple failure, and he knew, simply, that he was better. Better off or a better person, he didn't know, yet he really never needed to. Certainly not a better Vulcan, though the importance of being so seemed lost to him, on some selfish days.

As he already knew, this is not a romance story. He doesn't want to think about what kind it is when they avoid, yet again, the imminent and unavoidable threat of death. When they press forwards into the uncharted blackness of space; when they are nothing, really, but a speck amongst the thousands of other possibilities, of planets and galaxies and people, of so much other life. He doesn't want to think about it when Jim says quietly in the light of a fire "I've always known I'll die alone."

So he doesn't. None of this has been easy to pin down. When they touch or kiss, when they fight or make peace… it is all new, and no one has ever done it before.

He knows, logically, that this is an absolutely ridiculous assumption to make, but it is the way he feels. Admittedly, joyously, it is all the way he feels.

So he catches possibilities. Feels each moment of life leave him, because it has all become harder to grasp. At first, it was subconscious, working out how long their life will last. Because that's part of it- Jim has his own life, Spock has his own life, and then there's _their_ life in the middle, a stretch of space and time that will be solely theirs.

But their life-

Jim is human. On the chance, the very rare chance, that he survives his own personality and career, the average is 110. 110 years before death from the very vague 'old age' which normally, he's realized, involves the breaking down of a heart or a mind, the decay of a human's inner body shutting them down.

There is the much more likely chance that one of them will be killed in action. This is, eerily, more comforting to him. He can not pin down 'killed in action' and when he considers this as the more likely scenario, there is both the fact that it might be _his own_ life that ends first and the fact that he doesn't have to deal with the idea that he can not imagine Jim with more than a few grey hairs, that he can't imagine that faith deflated, youth lacking in the eyes and the lines of the mouth deepening until each grimace and smile of his life is permanent, etched into pores old skin, and these thoughts flash through him too fast, until it is difficult to breathe, and that chaos he knew would come is there, and he must meditate…

Despite the fact that the reason he can't imagine Jim as an older man is obviously because KIA is the more likely scenario.

It's not logical at all. He doesn't dwell on it anymore. Consciously.

So they live. They play chess, they kiss, they make love, and they do reckless, spectacular things with the life they have. They exist together, and he's happy. He's unbelievably, incredibly happy, even though he knows it can't last. That nothing gold can stay. That what they have now is fleeting, and that they are small in a galaxy, and this story of theirs will not have a happy ending.

This is not a romance. It will not end with them together, with the implied elation to exist forevermore after the story is finished. If so, this, at this moment, would have already been their ending.

So he will take a tragedy, if he must.

None of it is logical.

And he knows, fiercely and truly, that he could never just release _love _from his control. Everything else would follow, _will _follow. Love, comfort, happiness. Terror, confusion, grief.

He'll take the world of emotions, though, if he can have just this one.

* * *

A/N: Yeah, this wasn't one of those bits of Star Trek where Spock gets groovy with hippies. XD Sorry. And sorry for any OOCness that might have been there...

OH. And thank you so much for the reviews! I really do enjoy those things. :-)


	3. Good Enough

For the prompt found here: http: / . com/st_xi_kink_?thread=11310267#t11310267 Remove spaces.

Warnings: K/S, few cuss words, McCoy's baddassary. Intentional changes in tense. Twice.

Disclaimer: No matter how hard I try, it's still not mine. L

* * *

At the table today, Jim had laughed. It had been a simple laugh; nothing extravagant or dramatic. There had been a full 1.7 seconds when Spock had not even bothered to think of it, beyond the instinctive repression of a swell of soft affection he felt for the man.

The many other Vulcans at the table, however, had stopped. They had stared at Jim without questioning themselves of their own rudeness. To them, he was the one that had broken the social taboo. _Their_ social taboo, and 'their' taboo was all that mattered. Spock had found himself, in that instant, immediately struck back to when he was young and his father's friends and their wives would examine him, turning his head this way and that, exclaiming over his human traits.

Spock had considered many things at once at this instant at the table.

The first had been that it was disgustingly unfair that, in so many ways, Vulcans had formed a better social structure after the destruction of their home world, yet had compensated for this goodness by viewing outsiders as more and more of a mistake. In Spock's teenage and young adult years, the petty dislike of any other culture had seemed to be an opinion that was dying. It was considered more socially appropriate for a Vulcan to view humanity and other such cultures with a fair dignity, seeing their own values and mentality as something just as worthy of study as the Vulcan's way.

The destruction of Vulcan had made them more close-knit. It had brought families together, and had made it acceptable to fail, in some way. It was fine for a Vulcan to fall apart. This is what Spock had noticed when he had first walked out among the refugees and seen the fragments of broken families. Men, alone or with one or two small children, collapsed on the streets, shaking. Women howling like animals. Children wandering alone, screaming, pulling out their own hair, desperately seeking a familiar face.

And there had been the elders as well. They had remained calm, and they had walked among the chaos and attempted to bring tranquility to the other survivors. Clinics had sprung up on Vulcan II for those that had succumbed to the broken chaos of their own shattered katra. The quota for success after failure had broadened enough that it existed in ordinary society, and ways to prevent complete failure had been put in place, rather than the previous way that had seemed to simply be to look on failure in disdain.

Yet humans had become, if anything, a Vulcan taboo.

So that had been Spock's first thought. Disgust for his people, for a fleeting moment.

The second had been his own intense appreciation for Jim's laugh, and the way it took Jim a moment to notice that anyone was staring, and the way his eyes crinkled a bit above and below when he did laugh, as though the entire span of his face was verifying the emotion.

And the third had been the fact: the sudden cold, hard fact, sharp as a dagger in his ribs – that he had not laughed either. That he had not done anything at all to show that he was not one of the gaping, disapproving Vulcans. That technically, he was. And it didn't matter if he was sitting there, appreciating Jim's smile and the fact that he could laugh in a room that would hate him for it, in some way. Because Jim wouldn't know any of that appreciation. And this awkwardness – the cold stillness that followed the laugh, the way Jim's eyes flitted over the surrounding faces as the smile slid away – this was what happened when it was only Vulcans in the room. This is what happened when it was only Spock in the room.

Because he didn't laugh.

He didn't cry when Jim was crying. He didn't say 'I love you' or 'I'm so happy you're alive' or 'You give me emotional security.' Jim, Jim had said all of these things.

And while he, awash in his own deplorable, unavoidable emotions, had basked in his own knowledge that all of what he felt for this man was returned, the world outside his own mind remained cold.

Spock had spent his entire life striving to keep his face still and his words flat. He had succeeded.

It was this that pervaded over Spock's mind as they walked back to their hotel. He watched Jim, sinful to this world simply because the corner of his mouth was curved into a soft smile, and tried to name the times when Jim had opened his mouth to let out something beautiful, something preciously intimate by the rules of Jim's own culture, and Spock had responded with _nothing_ in return.

"So, do you want to stay over my place, or should I go over yours? I figure tonight's the last night we can have sex out of wedlock, so we might as well take advantage of that, you know?"

"I would prefer to collect my thoughts." Spock said. Even as he clicked by another moment in his head when he had been cold, the words fell from his lips like ice to Jim's warmth, and Jim, unbroken by this, frowned as if concerned, stepping forwards. In the streets on Vulcan II, he reached up, wrapping his arms around Spock's neck. Spock had felt the fabric on Jim's arms brushing against the fabric of his collar, the sound itself almost painfully intimate, and he wondered who could be watching from their windows.

"Yeah. That's fine. But… are you alright? You've seemed kind of spacey since dinner."

Spock didn't answer. Instead, he rested his face against the side of Jim's. His arms, for a moment, seem to clench beneath his own restrain, the very skin and bones of him desiring closeness. He wanted to hold Jim and kiss him fervently here in the street, where anyone could pass by and see them, but something in him was _unable_ to make the gesture, so he let his arms drop again.

"Spock?" Jim asked. The word was a breath of cool, moist air on his ear.

"Jim?"

"You… I mean, you want to do this, right? You want to get married?"

The words were so easy. 'Of course I've never wanted anything so much you complete me and I would very much like to spend the remainder of a thousand lifetimes with you, if you don't mind terribly and I love you I love you have I mentioned that I love you? Ever?'

What he said was nothing. What he thought was _nothing_. Blankness. And the sudden vision of Jim, old, him still young, or at least middle aged, and Jim holding him, dying, and saying in desperation all the things Spock will not say, even then.

* * *

Spock does not expect the doctor. He doesn't expect anyone. He sits in front of the window and compares the bleeding purple of Vulcan II's night sky with the mental photograph he holds of Vulcan's. They are entirely different entities.

He still feels Jim stiffening against him, sucking in a breath as if taking in the remainder of his soul. He can still see Jim's smile, forced and paper and broken, not letting the teeth out, not reaching his eyes, which seemed like slick blue stars in the darkness.

That moment seemed to last an eternity, a thousand seconds ripe with the opportunity to _forget_ this sickening epiphany and simply move forwards, go to Jim's hotel room, sleep in his bed, defy Vulcan custom, worthless, precious Vulcan custom... and during that time, he still said _nothing._

So he sits, numb and cold before the window, thinking of Vulcan because that explosion of grief has already happened, and there's no danger in it anymore. Jim is soft and sleeping somewhere else. He is somewhere else, smelling like cotton and soap and sweat and some underlying, masculine, salty, _Earthy_ scent that is all his own. He is breathing his slow breaths, his heart beating a steady, gentle rhythm. And Spock is not pressed up against his back, staying so long and so late into the night that he grows too tired to remember where his body ends and Jim's begins.

"Hey!"

He certainly does not expect the doctor.

But perhaps, Spock thinks, as he sees that broken, paper grin in his mind's eye; perhaps he should have expected Leonard McCoy.

"Are you here to fight me, Doctor?"

"Jesus, no. That screwy cold-blooded heart and body of yours is no match for my old sack of bones. 'Sides. I think Jim would probably kill me."

Spock can't see Bones from where he is, behind him, presumably facing towards the same great expanse of alien land that Spock is facing. The voice is comfortable, however. Even and light.

"I was of the impression that you were, and I quote, 'Going to hypo my hob-goblin ass if I turn out to be even more of a dick in the end.' Truly, your fascination with what resides below the belt of the average Terran male astounds me."

That earns him a huff. "Yeah. I'd take that bait, but I think it's actually you that likes what's in men's pants. 'Sides. I didn't just show up here, you know. There's a _reason_."

"And what would that be? You have already proclaimed your inability to engage me violently."

"Is there some kind of reason that you called off this wedding thing?"

Silence. Spock stares at the crisp line of purple breaking into black at the top of the window, the line where he can't see the sky anymore because of the roof and walls and his inability to simply rise and go outside. "I do not believe that is your concern."

"Damn right it's my concern. I came all the way to this god forsaken planet to 'bear witness' and all that shit. Not to mention I do love the future Missus Spock, that son-of-a-bitch, almost as much as you do. Or did. And since I'm second, I'd probably have to marry him if you didn't, and let me tell you, it wouldn't be any kind of stinkin picnic in the park."

"Doctor. Do you have some reason for this nonsensical rampage? Can you not either 'get to the point' or leave me be?"

"Oh. Right. Because Vulcans don't love, do they?" His voice is still light and airy. Spock hears him step forwards, however. He hears a note in his voice that speaks volumes better than the eerily calm words. "So you don't actually love Jim, do you? So it wasn't any trouble to you that he came knocking on my door stone drunk, going on and on about how he had been, um, what was it? 'Trying so hard not to fuck up this time, because he can't fuck up again, not with you, you're too…'" McCoy sucks in a breath through his teeth, trying to find the word. "Special, I think he used first. Better. The best. The one. Let me tell you, he got gradually more sappy as the night wore on. Something about how he had never known anyone like you. How you make him feel like he lived half his life with a missing limb or brain or something – I'm guessing brain, it makes more sense – and when he finally found you, well, shucks, that was when he was just so fucking _whole_ again. I think that's what he said, yeah. Then he threw up some of that booze – I mean, god, people say I drink, but when Jim really wants to, he can seem like he's trying to drown himself – and passed out on the couch."

The footsteps have been gradually approaching, getting closer and closer. Spock feels the hand reach down and claw the back of his chair, intensely feels the doctor lean forwards as if his very presence interrupts the solitary particles of the air and sends the entire room into a frenzy. "But that doesn't affect you at all, does it? You just realized he was too illogical, right? I mean, I heard something about him laughing at a party. And you can't have that. So you made the _conscious decision_ that his pathetic human devotion would have to be cut loose. You couldn't afford it. Right?"

Spock stares at the window. He hopes that this is another one of those questions that do not require an answer, because it seems like something is clawing at his chest and throat, and he doesn't want to… _can't_ let it out. Unsuppressable hatred swells inside him, running through his veins, stinging his eyes. After a moment of tense silence, however, it seems he is required to answer.

"It would appear that way." Silence, still. "True Vulcans are not swayed by emotions. They make their decisions based solely on logic."

Quite suddenly, the Doctor lets out a great sigh, as if relieved by something. He pats the back of Spock's chair once before walking around and sitting on the edge of it and leaning back in a way that is… wholly, uncomfortably intimate.

For the first time, Spock sees his face. It betrays nothing beyond relief, however. Comfort. Relaxation.

Spock does not know what to think beyond that this _absolute acceptance_ is not appropriate behavior for one who claims to be Jim's friend.

"Humans view emotional transactions as equally – if not more – important than simple conversation. They have a plethora of emotional needs, and they react to the universe surrounding them in a way that suggests they believe that all others share those emotional needs. It is why they persist in reacting emotionally when in the presence of those who do not require it."

"Yes. That's pretty much right. Jim does value emotional conversations. Especially when drunk, but that's beyond the point, I suppose."

"They require comfort when emotional pain is brought upon them, and occasionally humans require a thin, illogical web of intentionally friendly lies to be laid upon an unfortunate truth."

"Jim doesn't require white lies, though most people do. He does need comfort like any poor soul, though."

"They require environments that are constructive to their continuous emotional development in the way that Vulcans require intellectually stimulating environments. They possess a strong need for skin to skin contact, even within nonsexual settings and for reasons outside assistance or pleasure."

Bones let out a snort. "Yeah. Sure I'll admit that too. Though you really could do everyone a favor and stop talking like you're yapping on about a particularly advanced _pet_."

Spock falters, and his gaze slides again to the solid, clear glass of the window. When he speaks again, even to his own ears, he sounds robotic. Detached. "It is not the Vulcan way."

"So," McCoy says. "What you're implying is that Jim is too embarrassing and needy and generally emotionally _volatile_ for you to be seen with him in any kind of personal way, much less married to the bastard. Right?"

Spock does not respond. He focuses instead on breathing regularly, two heartbeats per inhale, four heartbeats per exhale. He remembers doing this while Jim was asleep so very many times. With the memory so close to the surface of his mind, even the sound of his own heart is unfamiliar, too harsh, too _alien_.

"That's what you're implying, I suppose." Silence, and McCoy still hadn't moved to strike him. He hasn't said anything degrading, really. Hasn't taken any harsh action against Spock. Spock wonders if it truly is because he could win against McCoy in a fight, because he wouldn't fight, wouldn't fight back, it would be understandable, _logical_, if McCoy wished to hit him.

"The weird thing is," the doctor continues, his voice carrying an odd inflection. "You could _also_ be implying that _you_ were the incompetent one."

Heartbeat, heartbeat, a breath like quiet white noise blanketing it, and it was all too _hurried_.

"Because he's an ingrate, right? I mean, seriously, I've had to explain my motives to him _time_ and _time again_. I have to actually use _words_ to tell him that I stick freaking hypos in his neck all the time because I care. I have to tell him what everything's for, because it's not like he knows himself. He's just a pathetic little puppy, yapping around for attention, for everything to be _explained_ to him."

Spock doesn't even remember making the decision, but suddenly, he is up, he has reeled on the doctor, who has leapt away from him with a spring that is certainly not fitting with his omnipresent complaints about his aching joints, and McCoy is _laughing_ in the face of a Vulcan baring its teeth.

It takes Spock another moment to realize his stance. To realize he is crouched, his fingers spread on the arm of the chair like a claw, his mouth already pulled to release a _hiss_ if he wanted to. And he knows he could. He feels the raw readiness of the chaos swirling hypnotically in his depths.

"And the way he always just _throws_ his arms around you and me and everyone, going 'You wuuuv me, riiiight?' Do you remember the last time he did that? That was, what, five minutes ago?"

"The captain has never, in my knowledge, acted in the way that you claim he does." Spock spits, and if it comes out with the burning acidic sound of a hiss, it is healthy, truly it is, for the Doctor to instinctively quiver with fear. _As he should._

"Oh. You know, you're right. I'm sorry. What does he do, then, to ask for any kind of attention like that? I mean, he must be doing _something._" His eyes glitter, and Spock realizes that ridiculous, illogical patterns of human speech have been used against him once again.

Spock straightens. "The Captain, despite what you seem to believe, is in need of emotional gratification as much as any human."

"No, actually, he probably needs a bit _more_. But that didn't answer my question. _What does he do_? What does he do when he's in need of a few pats on the back, or whatever the hell it is you do with him that I _never_ want to know about?" McCoy crosses his arms, staring intently into Spock's blank eyes.

"Nothing." Spock says softly.

"What?"

"Nothing. The captain… Jim does _nothing_. He never asks for anything at all. Or if he does, it is only in the way that humans do with one another." There is a flash of something in Spock's eyes, a bitter pain laced through the brown. "He offers it. An extended offer of emotional support and comfort. It is how he interacts with the universe. It is, ordinarily, how humans receive emotional support. They offer it, and it is given back to them in return."

"And what do you do, then, when he offers you this?"

Spock finally looks away. To McCoy's utter shock, he seems to _smile_ for a moment, a sick grin twitching so very slightly at the corner of his mouth, his eyes wide. From the side, they seem deeper, somehow, the mask flimsier. "I extract myself from his touch if we are in public. I look away if I find myself tempted to engage in emotional activity. I chide him for speaking of me in public in any way other than professionally, even on the most simple of matters. I… do not defend him when he is seen as disgraceful for his humanity." Spock turns back to him now, and all the anger of his stance before is gone, leaving his exhausted limbs limp by his sides. "It is ingrained in me that such actions are… barbaric. Are not to be rewarded. I respond automatically. I behave as any Vulcan would."

"So, now you're angsting about the fact that you're too Vulcan." McCoy said. "Wow. You _hypocrite_."

Spock shares his agreement by not saying anything.

"So… just fill me in on something, alright? How would Jim act if you were to respond in turn. If you were to laugh when he laughed and make out with him in public and go around hand-holdin' and skippin through tulips and everything?"

Spock's despondent face softens marginally, though his words are harshly spoken. "My actions would doubtlessly be unanticipated."

"So… he'd be surprised?"

"I believe I said that."

McCoy rolls his eyes. "But what would he do after he was done being surprised? Would he smile after he finished speaking to you? Maybe just be happier than he was before? More content and everything?"

"Obviously."

McCoy snorts. "Well! You know what, then? Why don't you?"

There is no response, and McCoy rolls his eyes again, walking forwards and around Spock, flopping down on his vacated chair and forcing the Vulcan to turn around to face him, stepping slowly. "Sorry. Just wanted to see if that would actually work, you know? But I guess not. Since we're here, however, I'm going to say some things. Ok? And you better listen good, because there's no way in hell I'm ever saying them again, so if you ever get yourself in yet another self-loathing pity-fest, you sure as hell better have these words memorized to look back on, ok?"

"Truly, if they are as healing and powerful as you seem to believe them to be, it would be wise for me to memorize even the inflection."

"Good." McCoy growls, glaring, clearly resisting responding within an inch of his life. And then his eyes are yet again boring sharply into Spocks, and Spock doesn't look away. "Jim is happy. Unbelievably, exceedingly, nauseatingly happy with you. You think he'd be happier if you were to suddenly be all emotional with him? I'll tell you when he _did_ get happier. It was after meeting you. Or even before that. When he took the goddamn Kobyashi-Maru, he was thrilled, obsessed with your fucked-up handiwork, going on and on about the test, grinning manically all the way.

"I've seen the way he smiles after he's had a conversation with you. Or after he's spotted you across a room. Or if you're god-damn _name_ is _mentioned_ in his presence. You want to talk about being better and being emotionally well-taken-care-of: that would be it. I've seen the way he responds to things you say that maybe I personally see as cold and unfeeling, but he _obviously_ sees as different. Because it's you. Because you're the one saying it, and Jim's no goddamn fool, he knows what's loving and caring in one culture and what is in the next.

"I've known the man for years, and until you, I certainly knew him _better_ than anyone. Judging on the actual need to have this conversation, I still might know him better, but he responds to you looking at him way more positively than he ever did to anyone else kissing him. Not that anyone else kissing him, in public or alone, has ever given him any reason to trust they care for him at all." His eyes are so intense in the dark, it seems impossible to look away. As if there is nothing outside the plane of his face, and those words. "Don't underestimate him. You don't have to work with him completely within the confines of his own culture in the same way he's never had to work with you completely in the confines of yours. If some part of your fucked up hobgoblin brain is concerned about hurting him, you better get your priorities straight _right now_, or else you will. Because not telling him every moment of every day, in words, that you love him? That won't hurt him. You could never say it in words at all and he'd be fine, probably. But leaving him to sob drunkenly into a hotel couch, alone? Believe it or not, that _does_ hurt him. Especially since it's Jim, and when he's upset, it's roaringly obvious, and he will blame himself for it. Automatically. Every time."

* * *

In the dark cover of night, Spock will walk quickly down the street. He will feel flighty and stupid and very human, and he will still worry, on some level, that someone will look out the window. Only on one level, though. On one deep, ingrained level.

He will open McCoy's hotel door with the key card he's given, and he will go find Jim on the couch. Jim will sit up, eyes blurred and red, and say the beginning part of his name. Spock will kiss him, and taste alcohol and the edge of vomit, and it will be mildly disgusting, and he will _feel_ so very stupid, and he will hold Jim close. He will still not say anything. His face will be buried in Jim's neck. And he will bring them over to the bed. They will not do anything; they will simply lie there, and that unfamiliar, non-Vulcan sun will creep up into the sky, casting the light from the window upon them, the rectangle of it in the shadows rising over them like a blanket. Spock will stare at it, Jim's sleeping form in his arms, and he will count his breaths against Jim's heartbeat, more familiar to him than his own, though he'll never say that, and he will shut his eyes after awhile and try not to thick about how maybe Jim deserves someone less broken.

And again: he will feel so very human.

* * *

A/N: I love McCoy. Bones. Doctor. Whatever. I just love him. I love prompts that concern him in a nonromantic fashion.

Anyway.

Soooo sorry this took forever. I actually started it, then put it aside to work on original fiction, and then I forgot about it and wrote other things, and then… well. Here it is now. ^_^' I hope the OP still checks up on this.

IN OTHER NEWS: Thanks to everyone who favorited this or put me on story or author alert! And I'd love to know what anyone thought of this or any other chapter. :-)


	4. No Mr Brady

Really brief note: This is just a tiny thing from awhile ago, requested here: . com/st_xi_kink_?thread=6768865#t6768865

But the ~lovely~ Reena Jenkins did a RECORDING of it *squee* so I'm putting it here because this is just awesome. :) .

http:/ reena-jenkins. livejournal. com / 2308. html

* * *

"Good mooooooorning, darling!" Jimmy cried, practically sashaying into the fort. He gave his 'wife' a swooping kiss on the cheek before leaning down to the 'baby,' which was busy attempting to escape from the chair it was currently confined in. He gave baby a kiss as well, crinkling a tiny nose as hairs tickled at the edge of his nostrils.

Spock, his 'wife,' frowned. "No," he said. "I still do not believe this is correct. My father would not behave in this manner."

Jim let out a huff, sitting down and grabbing his plastic mug and sipping at some pretend coffee. "Yeah," he said, "But I'm not being your dad. I'm being Mr. Brady."

"Mr. Brady is fictional." Spock pointed out crisply. "My father is not."

Jim glared at him. "When we get married," he said, "you better not go around telling me to act like your dad."

"When we get married, Jim," Spock said, giving him a LOOK, one that was only slightly undermined by his chubby cheeks and bugged-out eyes and bowl haircut, "we will not have children. Therefore, there will be no reason to play 'house.' So we will not need character references."

They both shivered at the mention that they wouldn't have kids. Not because they wanted them, or anything. Because they had just learned why it was possible for, say, Uhura and Lil' Scotty, who were the only other engaged couple in the preschool, and not possible for THEM yesterday, and overcoming a shocker like THAT wasn't exactly easy. Really. Grown ups were just gross, sometimes.

"Ok! Come on, midgits. Get over here. Story time."

Kirk's face brightened, and for a moment, it seemed he was about to run ahead without Spock, who was fumbling to remove the tribble from its restraints. But he turned back, grabbing the other boy's hand and tugging impatiently instead.

"C'mon! C'mon! It's Bones! Spock, hurry up, he might say somethin' weird without us!"

"This would not be objectionable." Spock muttered. He was pouting. Or, he wasn't. Because he was a Vulcan, like his daddy, so he couldn't actually pout. He was just scrunching his face and staring at the ground and holding Jimmy's hand a little more fiercely, and it just happened to all be at the same time, and it just happened to fall around the time that they had to spend time with Bones, the student teacher, who Jim liked a whole lot despite the fact that he made fun of Spock sometimes and didn't smell nice at all. Yeah.

"Get over here, kids. Time for… eh, group discussion. And then I'm apparently going to read you a book about this tree that spoils this little brat rotten and the brat just goes and sits on its body, because you kids aren't going to be screwed up enough by life itself."

Bones looked as charming as ever, sitting slouched over and smelling sour, with his face all prickled with the beginnings of beard. Jim waved frantically with his free hand, and Spock glared, gripping the other one.

The tribble trilled. As if nothing was wrong. Spock found this weirdly insulting.

"Ok." Bones said, taking a sigh and then gifting them all with the barest shadow of a smile. "What did you all do over the weekend?"

"I rode my bike by myself!" Janice said from the front, jumping up and down as her hair (a crazy amount of hair) bounced in beaded braids around her head."

"Peachy." Bones said.

"What did you do, Bones?" Hikaru cried from the front, eyes wide.

"I survived a hangover." Bones said conversationally. He seemed to regret this as soon as he said it, however, wincing slightly and then adding "But hey, this is about you kids. Come on, what did you all do this weekend?"

"I ate a worm!"

"I watched Spiderman!"

"I played with my dog!"

"Jimmy!" Bones called, pointing at Jimmy now, who was practically leaping out of his tiny plastic chair.

"I drove my jackass step daddy's car off a cliff!" he shouted proudly.

There was much oohs and ahhs and applause to this, and Jimmy smirked and sat down, and Bones looked really disturbed, and Spock glared at everyone until they looked away. Then he scooted closer, holding Jim's entire arm now. Because this was his Jimmy, and no freaking cliffs could have him, because they were going to get married and have tribble babies. But not in THAT WAY. Because that was gross. They'd never be like that. Plus, tribbles were different from Vulcans and humans.

It probably wasn't possible, or something. At least one of them would have to be a tribble.

* * *

A/N: Review, please! I love your opinions. They are the crack to my Brittany Spears and the Robin to my Batman!


	5. Electric Chess

Electric Chess (K/S (ish))

Disclaimer: Not mine.

Spock is playing chess on the computer.

Why is he doing this? Is it for the simple, logical perusal of an intellectual game? Is the fact that it's the computer intentional? Does he ordinarily play against Vulcans? Do Vulcans only use those precise formulas that have been perfected over the years? Does this make the game more enjoyable? Does it make it boring? Is his expression - that very, very slight tightening on the bridge of his nose, the slack relaxation around the eyes contrasting to this strain - is it out of boredom? The game looks like it could go either way, but still, is it boring? To know why each move was made: is this what it's like to play against Vulcans? It sounds like an insult, but to Vulcans, to 'good' Vulcans, it _should_ be like playing against a computer, shouldn't it?

Is there anything he should be doing right now other than chess? Is there some work he's neglecting purely out of the need to play a goddamn game? Does he dislike himself for it? Does he play this for some imaginary companionship? Does he play this because he needs to distract himself? God knows any other person would need to distract themselves. Does he need to discover things, right now? Work something out? Is his need to be a scientist and not just a recorder of facts so great that he gets antsy on any given day, in the same way Jim finds himself twitching if he sits still for too long?

How many things is it possible to wonder about and discover from simply this: Spock is playing chess on the computer?

Probably thousands. Because there is a way in which he sits at different times. There are the corners of his mouth, lifted, slackened, normally tight as if grasping something sharply. There is a style with which he operates, a level beneath the easily held delusion that he is perfect. Everything is much more fascinating beneath that.

There are actions that Jim finds himself wondering too much over, and this is one of them. They don't know each other. Not really. The only thing they seem to have silently acknowledged is that they rub off on each other, in a way, when they are together. Because the urge to _discover_ seems to spill itself into Jim's blood, simmering in him as real as any actual fire. To not just explore and see the universe and meet its people as some kind of adventurous tourist, but to _know_ them. To know the universe. To know Spock.

And Spock will find himself, more often than naught, deep within the thrill of any given situation. Jim can't figure out which of his qualities pass on to the other man - he doesn't know himself well enough - but there is no doubt that Spock is different when they are in a landing party and the potential for action becomes ripe and real. The potential to do something, anything, to make something better. To have a self be worth _something_ in the end.

It's an odd intimacy for people who don't know each other yet. Evidently they're going to, eventually, if older versions of themselves can be explicitly trusted. But now, Jim doesn't ask about the chess. He sits and he wonders, and he wishes the board were a solid thing on the table, where the lack of a computer would make Spock seem suitably lonely, so it wasn't all in his head. So he could sit down, and not feel crazy for interfering with some great silence he can't yet begin to understand.

One day soon, of course, it will be a tri-level board on the table, and the singularity of Spock, alone, will make him more approachable. Will instill a simultaneous ache and thrill in Jim, because he understands that, he gets it. And the silence will be interrupted. And intimacy - confusing, wonderful and terrible - will unfurl slowly, more a revelation of something that already exists than the creation of it. There is something too _suited_ in the way they operate. It will blanket everything, and science and discovery; so obviously joined in some way, will become a force.

For now, Jim sits alone at a table at two in the morning, sleepily drinking a glass of milk and wondering if Bones is up. If Sulu's up. If anyone more approachable in the universe is awake. Someone easy and distant who doesn't (somehow) scare him. He will wonder how it is possible for his starship - his beautiful starship - to seem this enormous and empty, cavernous and suspended in a blanket of black, the worlds suspended in that darkness invisible and too far away at night when insomnia kicks in, and he is alone.

And Spock will play chess on the computer console across the room.

A/N: I started college, so there will probably be a noticeable delay in updates until I figure this all out. Here's a kind of drabble thing I made.


End file.
